Torque Game Builder

Today I finally got around to getting the latest build of the Torque Game Builder (the Torque 2D engine).

I have spent an afternoon (including distractions) playing with it and working through some of the tutorials.

My first impressions are very good.

I've seen no sign of being treated as a second class citizen due to using the Mac side of things. (The only Mac related issue I have had is the use of F10 which Apple have stolen for their own use )

A very refreshing discovery is that the tutorials actually work. So many times in the past I have worked through tutorials for various things only for them not to work. The only issue is that the tutorials mention having to restart TGB when scripts are edited, via an external text editor, but no longer seems to be the case.

Before I move on to the tutorial for a scrolling game I am going to try putting together my own single screen game.

I have finally made some headway with my Torque Game Builder experiments.

Before people start jumping up and down in delight and shouting out 'Told you so!' I must say that the brick walls I've run up against have been in the real world getting in the way of computer fun and not issues with the TGB.

Last weekend I finished off my experiments by putting together a small fun game involving bouncing objects off other objects to score points. A fun proof of concept without having to worry myself about physics, OpenGL, audio stuff or particle engines.

This weekend I spent some time going through a platform game example and then expanding the game myself.

The game I've come up with works well for the results of half a day or so playing. I did run into one or two problems (just like working with anything new) which I managed to work out myself in the end. Knowing what I have learnt so far I know that when I come to put together a more adventurous game things will get developed more quicker.

I have run into one major stumbling block for now though in that the built for release version of my game behaves slightly differently to the development version. I've experienced the same problem on both Windows and Mac so it does not look like a 'Mac second class citizen' issue. I have posted to the TGB forum so hopefully I will get a solution soon.

When this issue is resolved I will be uploading my short game for the world to see.

It is a simple game Water Waste that involves you using an umbrella to deflect rain drops into green puddles to recycle the water. The game ends when all the water in the system has been wasted by falling off the bottom of the screen.

This is a very basic game (i.e. far from complete and missing polish and stuff) and something I have several ideas to expand upon.